While I’m working on some new post for my blog, I thought I’d share some other blog posts that may trigger some interesting educational explorations for you.
Having a Growth Mindset is a big topic these days, and with good reason. Every math teacher knows this, as we constantly hear the phrase “I’m not good at math.” Geoff Schmit’s recent post Introducing Growth Mindset is a good place to start reading up on mindset.
I’m fairly new to working within the public school system, and it’s been really interesting seeing how the dynamics of school compares to how I remember it when I was a student. One thing that is different now is a new iteration of an old idea: distance learning through online courses.
Lots has been written about online learning. I’ve personally completed a masters degree in educational technology all through online courses.
One of my goals for using standards based grading is that I wanted to get away from the “get a mark” or “take a mark off” mentality. By using a three point scale tied to a learning objective and not a single question, my numerical feedback directly relates a holistic realization of progress. As a result I now get the truly enjoyable treat of having new students approach me and asking why they lost a mark.
This week we had our final exams, and I have all of my Physics 11 and 12 marks in. Overall the exam marks were extremely disappointing. The Physics 11 exam was 50 questions and my class average was 61%. For Physics 12, the multiple choice section was even worse with 51% average, while the written portion was much higher at around 85%.
It is difficult for me to understand exactly what happened with the exams.
